Spooks
by Beth Marsters
Summary: a story of a cursed family who see just how far ghosts can go


Spooks  
  
What was I meant to do when my mum told me our house was haunted? I couldn't just say, "Wow, that's cool" could I? I didn't know what was going on. I tried to convince myself that I wasn't really bothered but I failed miserably. Mum told me not to worry because they weren't that bad. For ages after that I always asked lots of questions about them. I kept thinking "Well, what's the worst they can do?" A day later I found out. Me, mum, dad, my little brother (Spencer) and my little sister (Alice) were sitting around the table. It felt good because we hadn't been like a happy family for a long time. Mum and dad had been arguing for what seemed like forever. They had finally come to their senses and stopped rowing so we could be a real family again. While we were sitting at the table I suddenly shuddered. A cold sensation ran down my back making all the hairs on my neck stand on end. My family turned and looked at me and asked what was wrong. I didn't know. I sat in a stunned silence. I tried to assure them that I was fine and I opened my mouth to start talking but no words came out. My throat was unnaturally dry. It felt like rough sandpaper. I drank some of my water hoping that it would make me feel better. It didn't. Again I tried to talk but again I failed. My family were continuing to eat their meals but as they put their food in their mouths I could feel their eyes boring a hole in my head. I leapt up and ran up the stairs. I felt like an animal in a zoo being watched by all the passers-by. My mum ran after me and asked me what was wrong. I talked now. I rambled on and on for what seemed like hours. I told my mum what was bothering me but she wasn't listening. I knew she wasn't. She had a distant look on her face and it was obvious that she had other things on her mind. That's when I really lost it. I shouted at her. I just couldn't contain myself anymore. I shouted at her to get out of my bedroom. She went away. I cried and cried for a long time after she'd left. I felt so terrible for what I'd done but I couldn't bring myself to go downstairs and apologise. I wanted to, but I couldn't. There was something holding me back. Something that seemed like it would never go away.  
  
The next morning I ran downstairs. All thoughts of the shouting last night were out of my head. I walked slowly down the stairs with a happy feeling about something. That feeling was suddenly rubbed away. I looked at the floor and there was my mum just lying there surrounded by blood. I screamed. I couldn't help myself. Nobody else was up at the time, but quickly the rest of my family came running down the stairs. My dad stood on the stairs rooted to the spot. Spencer and Alice just looked confused as if they didn't know what was going on. I studied the room for any evidence to what could have happened. My attention was drawn to a broken window. There was smashed glass all around the windowpane. There was also a glass of water lying spilt next to mum. I guessed she must have gone to get some water and was greeted by a burglar. The most awful thing about this though was that nothing had been stolen. The room had obviously been turned upside down but no items were missing. Some person killed my mum so she wouldn't disturb them but they took nothing. Well they did, they took my mum's life, which was more important than anything else in the world. I suddenly came back down to earth. I thought about it and it was so hard to understand. How had this person killed my mum? There was only one cut. Then something occurred to me. They had cut a main artery. That must have been a very slow and painful death.  
  
At school I couldn't concentrate on anything. I kept having flashbacks of what I saw. Nothing was clear anymore. There were so many questions buzzing around in my head. I tried to listen to what the teacher was saying but I couldn't. I had that strange feeling again. Exactly like the time before. I knew something was going to happen. So I got up and ran home. My dad was sitting down on his chair looking dazed. I kicked my shoes off and walked over to my dad. I asked him if he was all right. He said yes but I knew he wasn't. I went over to him and clung on to him. At that moment Spencer ran down the stairs. He stood their shaking all over and beckoning us to follow him. I didn't want to follow him. I knew something had happened. There was something not at all right about this but I didn't know what. We saw Alice and she was screaming and telling someone to go away. There was no one there. She looked different somehow. I hate to say this about my sister but she looked evil and it was like someone possessed her. Or I think I would be more accurate in saying that it wasn't someone that was causing this problem. It was more like something. Something not in the slightest human. I stared at Alice. She was shaking all over and she looked pale and ghostly. I knelt down next to her. I grabbed her hand and clutched it hard. She turned to face me and the next minute her hand slipped slowly out of mine. I sat there feeling relieved that she seemed calm and normal again. But suddenly her hands grabbed for my neck. She had such a tight grip and she wouldn't let go. My dad and Spencer tried to prise her hands off my neck but in vain. They tried leaving her for about a minute seeing if her grip loosened at all. It didn't. She kept clutching my neck holding on as if her life depended on it. That's when her grip tightened. I couldn't breathe. I tried and tried to breathe but I just couldn't. Part of me just wanted to die. I didn't want this pain. I stopped struggling. Alice seemed to snap back into her normal self almost immediately. She stood up and ran as fast as she could. We heard the front door slam after her, but my family and I knew that it was no use going after her. She ran so quickly and no one else could run at half of the pace that Alice ran. My dad stood up slowly. He went to the phone downstairs and called the police. I think that we all knew that we wouldn't get Alice back but we had to try.  
  
I went down the stairs as usual. I was glad I didn't have to go to school. I knew I wouldn't be able to face it. Alice had been all over the newspapers and on all of the news programmes. We wanted her to come home. It was Sunday a week and two days after Alice had gone missing. I went and talked to dad and asked him if there was any news. He shook his head sadly. I wondered what she was doing right now. The police were still searching for her but they were on the brink of giving up. I knew deep down that they wouldn't find her. Suddenly the phone rang. I answered it on the first ring. I wondered what was going on because the police rang and said could we go down to the station as soon as possible. They had found Alice. But she was dead. I asked them if they knew how she had died and they said yes. She had committed suicide. She had jumped off the bridge near our house. I asked why and they handed me a note. She had addressed it to me and it was written in her neatest handwriting. This is what she wrote: Dear Pippa  
  
I'm so sorry for what I done to you. I thought that because I hurt you I should hurt myself as well. I really didn't mean to do it. I don't know what made me do it. I can't ever forgive myself so I thought that this would be the best thing to do. I don't ever want you to forgive me either. I know I have been a bad sister to you. I will look up at you from hell because that is where I am going. I deserve everlasting torture.  
Sorry  
  
I read the letter over and over again trying harder to make any sense of it. I couldn't. I didn't understand what Alice was talking about. She must have felt awful. Just like I do now. I felt like I have killed her myself. I had no one to talk to and I didn't know what to do with myself. My Dad and Spencer hadn't seen the note. I really wanted this to be a secret. I was hoping that if I didn't tell them about the note we would just be a normal family again. I knew that wasn't going to happen. But I still thought I knew what was going on there. I always blamed the ghosts for what had happened. But worse things were still to come. The next day my Dad became very depressed, he went out and never came back. Spencer and I tried to cope without Dad but we failed. We didn't want to go to school. We wanted to stay at home and wait for Dad to come back. We hoped that he would return but deep down we knew he wouldn't.  
  
But still we sat in our house. All the ordeals that we had been through together started to seem worthwhile. I didn't know why but we had got much closer through this time. We always looked out for each other. I couldn't believe how well we were coping. But we still always stayed at home and never went to school. Eventually the social services started to become worried about us. I remember when the social workers came to our door and knocked on it. We sat in the living room, all huddled together trying not to make a sound. But they had already seen the light on in the room. We sat still and tried to be quiet. They stayed outside for about an hour and then we heard them dial the numbers on a phone. We listened even more carefully and we heard them dial three numbers. We stopped breathing. About ten minutes later, the police arrived at our house and started to walk up the garden path. We wondered what they were going to do. But then we heard the first thump on the door. They kept thumping and thumping for what seemed like forever and then, all in a flash the first man broke through the front door. He crept silently round the corner and we didn't actually notice at first. All of a sudden we both sprung into action and ran up the stairs as quickly as we could. I kept hold of Spencer's hand. It was frozen cold and it kept trembling. We ran and ran. Then we ran through to the upstairs bathroom and climbed onto the toilet seat, we carefully opened the large window and I counted to three and on the count of three, we jumped. We still kept holding hands. I expected a hard landing but I was wrong. We landed in the arms of a police officer. I tried to struggle my way out of his arms but his grip was too tight. I wondered what was going to happen to us.  
  
The social workers came over and talked to us. They were horrible to us and they kept saying it was our fault our dad walked out. They pretended that they cared about us and they dumped us in a dirty, old children's home where no one liked us. But we battled on. We did everything together and we vowed that we would never be separated. But one day our social worker Claire (she was the worst of all of the social workers) came and told us that she had some good news. As soon as she said that I knew something bad was about to happen. She gave us a false smile and flicked her pretty blonde hair over her shoulder. I looked up at her and for the first time I realised that there was a young couple standing behind her. Claire turned round and beckoned the couple forward. They stepped forward and bent down so that they were our height. They talked to Spencer but they ignored me completely. Spencer loved them. He smiled for the first time in ages and he began talking to them. I whispered in his ear to stop talking to them but he ignored me. As soon as they had gone home he started talking about them and he told me all that they had told him. Later on after I'd finished tea (mushy peas and lumpy mashed potato) I was ready for bed and I was about to clean my teeth when Claire strode up to me and told me I was to go with her to her office immediately. I followed Claire along the corridor.  
  
I had never even seen down here before. It was a complete contrast to the rest of the dump it had a shining white floor and many windows down the sides. At the end of the corridor there was a particularly large brown polished wooden door. Claire entered first and I followed. She offered me a deep blue comfortable chair to sit on so I accepted immediately. By this time my heart was racing, I had been wondering what was going on all the way here. Claire then sat herself down on a slightly larger and no doubt slightly more comfortable chair. She sat down and put her skinny elbows on her desk. Claire started talking to me in a sweet, girlish voice and giving me a wide grin that I knew was false. She told me all about the people that had visited Spencer today. As if I hadn't heard enough about them already. I also wondered what this had to do with me. I looked up at Claire inquiringly and she answered my call straight away. She told me that the family really wanted to adopt Spencer since they couldn't have children of their own. Next Claire told me that the family didn't want me. I was heartbroken. What had I done to deserve all this? I cried. I wouldn't let Spencer leave me. I was determined. Claire attempted to comfort me but failed. She told me I could still see Spencer at the weekends if I wanted to. That wasn't good enough. I knew what I had to do.  
  
Later that night I crept over to Spencer's bed and woke him. I had a bad feeling that he wouldn't come quietly and I knew as soon as he woke up that I had been right. I told him to get dressed and pack all his things into a bag. He obeyed immediately but obviously didn't have a clue what was going on. About ten minutes later he came to me and told me that he had packed his things away but he kept asking what was going to happen but I changed the subject every time. I finished cramming my things into my small bag and I hoisted it up onto my shoulder. My bag was really light but still my back throbbed as we left our bedroom. I closed the squeaky door behind me and as I did so I felt a sudden urge to run. Spencer and I ran down the staircase attempting to avoid all the broken toys scattered across the already narrow stairs. We were now taking the steps two at a time and leaping over the toys. By the time we got to the end of the hall my heart was racing in my chest and I could almost hear the beating. Spencer silently opened the front door and ran out onto the garden where he stood waiting for me to join him. I stepped outside and carefully slid the door shut behind us. Now it would be easy. Or so I thought.  
  
I thought I had the plan completely sussed out but when I thought about it more carefully there were many questions buzzing around in my head. I heard Spencer panting and moaning behind me but I told him it wouldn't be long now. I didn't know where we were going but I just wanted to get as far away as possible from the children's home. I guessed it was about one o' clock in the morning now and we still hadn't rested. I decided we should now sit down and sleep. We found a sheltered spot next to some large bushes where I knew other people wouldn't see us. This would have to do for now at least. I pulled my jumper out of my bag and I wrapped myself in it to keep warm. I woke up about one hour later but I was still tired. I just wanted to go to sleep but I couldn't. The night had got even colder than it was before and there was frost on the grass. I looked up into the sky and I knew there would be rain. I tried again to sleep but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get to sleep. Then the rain came. It poured down in giant blobs. The sky was pitch black and by now the rain was running down my cheeks. Spencer seemed unaware that anything was happening. I heard a loud rustling in the bush beside us. I whipped my head round but there seemed to be nothing there. I thought quickly what was the worst thing it could be? My question was answered for me. A large shadowy figure emerged from the bush, it had hollow holes where its eyes should have been and was wearing a long black cape wrapped loosely round its body. I tried to scream but a white hand covered my mouth. Spencer awoke with a jolt. He tried to grab the hand but  
  
The Diary ended here. Think about what could have happened. If you can't guess this was the headline on most newspapers  
  
Children brutally murdered, police are appealing for witnesses  
  
If only they knew the truth 


End file.
